[Frondo]

Just one comment on this:

> Teachers unions may care more about teachers ...

That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members. It's the purpose of the school system overall, including principals, school boards, and so on, to care about teaching kids.

[stretchcat]

Maybe if student unions weren't a complete joke, the situation would improve. As it stands, teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed, against the interest of the students, while the students have no real representation or organization to provide balance by looking after student interests.

My mother was a middleschool teacher when I was in highschool, and drove me to highschool in the morning. Because she was a teacher, she had to get there before the school obstensibly opened, which wasn't a problem for me or my brothers because the administration of the highschool was reasonable and let us sit quietly in the office until the school opened. A handful of other kids had this arrangement too. It worked fine until my junior year, when the teachers union decided to throw a hissy fit. The result of that was all students being made to stand outside in the cold until the school was officially open. The teachers Union said that allowing students into the building before school hours unfairly saddled them with more labor... never mind that we were all quietly sitting in the office receiving compliments from the secretaries for being well behaved.

[worik]

I find these stories from the USA about teachers unions fascinating. My prior is strongly pro union, so for a long time I disbelieved them. But I hear them so often from so many sources...

We had problems back in the day here (Aotearoa) as the union movement became the battle ground for the larger social class conflicts, that whilst meat hook reality overseas, made less sense here (here it was racial conflict and colonisation that mattered, another story, another day).

The union movement was smashed in the conflict. Too corrupt and ossified to fight back against a revitalised state in the 1980s and 90s. But the public sector unions survived, and were are strong now. The teachers union here is mighty.

But we see none of the problems (bad teachers defended, stupid rules enforced arbitrarily - well some, there is still bureaucracy). The unions campaign very effectively for their members, some political agents try to stir up concern (American issues leak through here) but mostly no body really cares. When my children were at school I never gave it a thought.

Good luck to the Amazon workers, I hope it goes well.

[Thlom]

Sorry, but are teachers employed by the union who then sells the teachers labor to the school? Or do I misunderstand?

[grumple]

> teachers unions keep terrible teachers employed

Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs?

I think the lack of desirability is what keeps terrible teachers employed. There also aren't great ways to measure how good someone is at teaching.

[zdragnar]

If you were to ask the teachers and people who went to school for education that I happen to know, all of them would tell you there is absolutely more people who want to be teacher than there are open positions.

My best friend gave up on getting a teaching job and went into industry work, while my sister in law has gotten multiple certifications to be able to teach different subjects and is still only able to get part-time substitute teaching work.

[kritiko]

There are cases like NYC's "rubber rooms"[1] where teachers are paid to sit in a room and not to teach.

1 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-roo...

[stretchcat]

> Are there a bunch of would-be teachers clamoring for those jobs?

Emphatically yes, particularly at nice well funded schools. I have numerous long-term friends who have become school teachers, many of then had to move quite a distance just to find schools with openings. Most states have teacher certification reciprocity with Pennsylvania, which gave them a leg up in this regard. Even so, searching for open positions was clearly stressful for them. But for them it was worth it; the work is rewarding and socially important. They like working with kids, and they like getting several months of vacation every year. There is no other job quite like it.

[munk-a]

> Emphatically yes, particularly at nice well funded schools.

I emigrated up to Canada a while back where teachers are paid very well[1] and the bad teachers get weeded out really quickly since there are plenty of enthusiastic replacements. I am sure that at well funded schools in the US teachers do great - but most US schools are terribly funded[2] so I'm not surprised folks are willing to move across the country if a well reimbursed position opens up.

1. https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/09/average-ontario-teacher-... [TL;DR 108k including benefits] - also they've got great pension options.

2. Taking New York as a random counter example since cost-of-living is probably pretty close to Toronto https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/new-york-state-teacher-sal... [TL;DR 42k probably excluding benefits - which were about 12k for toronto teachers]

[kritiko]

The url says New York State. NYC teacher salaries are publicly available - ~$60-125k USD based on education and tenure. It's a solid upper middle class living (as much as you can say that in a HCOL city with insane real estate market, but it starts higher than the median household income for the city) with great benefits, pension, and job security.

https://www.uft.org/your-rights/salary/doe-and-city-salary-s...

[stretchcat]

Anecdotally, the schools with the worst funding also have the most troubled students. I think many new teachers are up for a challenge and low pay at first, but are disturbed by the reality of what they find and seek better schools for their own mental wellbeing. From what I've heard, these schools get a steady supply of freshly minted young teachers straight out of college, who burn out after a few years. Their teacher supply problems come from a failure to retain teachers, not an inability to hire them in the first place.

[aerosmile]

The point that the OP is making is that the negative propaganda against unions is not just entirely made up, but also something that many people with kids in school have experienced first-hand. This does factor in when that same parent then goes to their workplace and is pitched to form/join a union. I am not saying they won't agree to it, but they might remember the negative aspects of dealing with the concept of a union in another aspect of their lives.

[Frondo]

You can find a million more horror stories related to corporations abusing workers than you can of unions keeping bad workers employed, yet one of these types of organizations is always under an existential attack.

If I didn't know about the sustained US corporate anti-union messaging as a thing, I might wonder why that is.

[rileymat2]

It is very rare that the best propaganda is made up. The best is true but incomplete, anecdotal in this case.

To hold up it must be true, but misleading.

[soperj]

What are you basing this on? For years the Nazi went on and on about the Jews being the inferior race, about how it was science based, they indoctrinated the youth.

[rileymat2]

I don't particularly want to go on hate sites to find examples at this moment.

But the gist is, there are statements that are not falsifiable, like that "inferior race" that is not fact, it is the conclusion, but it is not falsifiable easily because there is no clear metric being used for that judgment.

If you look at U.S. race based hate sites that are easiest to find now, you will see things like accurate references to crime rates and such. The number is true, but it is missing all kinds of context and correlations and such.

For example, I have seen many references to lower IQ scores for certain groups. There are many ways to interpret this, but the racists use it as evidence. The "number" is true.

Also, the anecdotes they tell are largely true, but to pick and choose emotional one off examples is misleading.

By warping "true" things, you maintain credibility.

Look at some of the election stuff. For example, if someone said "They were bringing suitcases into the polling place" (I can't remember the exact details) There is video it is true, but it is not nefarious. But it takes a long time to rebuff the implication and explain proper procedure.

Now, I may have overstated "best", because the best is emotional, and a lot of that is art, nothing to do with fact, and portrayal of the enemy. You see this in a lot of the Nazi imagery. It has nothing to do with facts, true or false.

[Aunche]

Teachers and police officers are public servants. If they want to bargain, they should be negotiating with the public, not government officials. Otherwise, it's just collusion.

[dxdm]

If not with government officials, i.e. the executive part of the system taking care of public concerns, how should they negotiate with "the public"?

[Aunche]

Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus. Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge, let alone approval.

Government workers already have a lot of job security, so I don't think unions should be allowed to affect that.

I do think that public servants have a right to negotiate safety and other technical issues without public approval.

[dragonwriter]

> Any negotiated increase in salary or pensions should require a vote unless if there is a budget surplus.

Generally, they do require a vote of the appropriate governing body, with all the associated public information and opportunity for input that goes along with that.

> Municipalities are incurring way too much debt without taxpayer knowledge

If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care. Because if they did, even if they were too lazy to find out themselves, it would be too convenient a lever for opposition to whoever the current majority is in the relevant governing body to use with the public to unseat them to go unused.

[Aunche]

> If true, its because taxpayers don’t actually care.

They do care when they're forced to pay extra taxes to cover interest. Your average voter doesn't have time to audit their city's finances. Both the unions and public officials knew that public would not agree to tax hikes, so they decided to go with unfunded pensions instead. Even though it's technically transparent, they're still abusing an information asymmetry, much like pyramid schemes.

[worik]

I want to vote on your salary.

[Aunche]

The difference is that my salary doesn't force you to take on debt.

[midasuni]

The government are the public’s representatives.

Or should a developer negotiate with a shareholder for a bonus?

[Simulacra]

With the public for ransom.

[seibelj]

The #1 concern with a school should be the children, not the teachers. Public schools bend-over-backwards to help the teachers over the students. Public schools have remained essentially unchanged for 120 years - one teacher divulging knowledge to a room of kids in silent observation. Nothing will change when unions are in control - they have absolutely no incentive.

[wrsh07]

I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread.

The teachers that I know work tirelessly, don't make very much money, and do literally everything they can to help students. This is doubly true during the past year when they've had to re work plans so that they work over zoom or in person.

I think perhaps the point of friction is that all of this is true and the city can't afford to pay them more, so they get other concessions.

I fundamentally disagree with your claim about lack of innovation - in a public high school 15 years ago your story doesn't ring true, much less seeing my friends who are teachers talking about lesson plans today.

[moate]

>>I'm honestly kind of surprised to see the teacher union hate in this thread.

I mean, have you seen the American Education system? Millions of people thought Betsy Davos was a good idea. MILLIONS. The DOE under her tenure was basically a full on assault against public education in favor of charters/private schools. I've had hours-long, in-person arguments with people who are CONVINCED teachers have the easiest jobs on the planet and we pay them too much.

Not to mention many HN commenters in general tend to strong pro-management stance which pushes them anti-union in general.

[Ericson2314]

You all realize half the reason we have "bad schools" is that families home lives have been falling apart for decades, and schools are the only government agency (except for maybe the police...) interfacting with those families on regular basis?

That and hyperlocal funding.

We can't like society as a whole fall part and expect schools to keep on performing well.

[pwinnski]

Non-union private schools can innovate at will, but so far it's not clear whether any of them have found a solution that works better than the one in place at public schools, while also satisfying the legal requirements put on public schools to accept all students, etc.

[worik]

Last I heard (twelve months ago) the results for "charter schools" were statistically no different than any other.

There are anecdotes to support the point of view they are bad, and anecdotes to support that they are good.

The source of funding does not seem to be the problem. The quantity of funding, definitely.

[rileymat2]

And unionized cannot? Maybe my children’s school is unique but the teaching there is radically different than my own.

A couple of years ago there was endless complaints about new ways to teach math.

[jandrese]

It's a strange system we live in where teachers get fired at the drop of a hat for seemingly innocuous offenses like teaching evolution or breaking up a fight, while also being absolutely untouchable.

[kube-system]

That's because it's not "a system", schooling in the US is thousands of systems.

[maya24]

That is a failure of the public education system not unions. It is not as if the governments are trying to push innovative teaching methods and investing more in public education especially for the underprivileged.

[WalterBright]

There is pretty much zero chance of being elected to the public school board without the union endorsement.

[Frondo]

Untrue and a little absurd.

I've personally known three people who got elected to their local school boards without any endorsements at all. They all had big families, literally just a lot of people knocking on doors evening after evening, no prior political experience even.

[KorematsuFred]

> Teachers unions may care more about teachers ...

Teachers union is easily one of the worst Unions in USA which has turned public education system into a wasteland of incompetent teachers protected at the expense of competent and unemployed. It has turned our education system into a soviet styled "jobs program for adults" instead of a schooling system for children.

If Americans ever wanted an example of how much damage unions can do, look no further than Teachers union.

[dimitrios1]

And if you want the second best example, take a look at the MTA union. Rife with corruption for the union managers at the top, projects delayed by years to decades, cost overruns in the billions, etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

[Hickfang]

> .. That's precisely the point of a union. It's an organization to protect its members ..

That's just it, the union is there to represent the interests of the senior officers and no one else.